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View Full Version : Vista Conversion is KILLING ME! -- HELP!!!



Gutch
01-28-2008, 10:20 PM
Oh yeah -- It's draining my wallet too!!:angry:

Here's the situation -- I had a major system crash two weeks ago, which I finally troubleshot down to either an intermittent SATA drive or cable. Not sure and don't care anymore. Picked up a new big drive and decided that rather than spending a week installing all of the service packs and security updates needed to bring my first edition XP disc up to date, I would make the transition to Windows Vista.

The main studio components involved in the rest of the story are:

PC: 3.2GHz P4, 4GB RAM, 750GB SATA drive (the new one) + 250GB SATA drive + 300GB USB outboard drive (for backup)

Hardware -- MOTU 2408 Mk3 + PCI424, MOTU Midi Timepiece AV, Mackie Control Universal

Software -- Windows Vista Ultimate, SONAR 6PE, Project5 v2.5, Dimension Pro

After fighting with the PC for a week to get a good install of Vista (try upgrading -- nope. Try formatting and installing -- can't. I bought the upgrade version. Try putting XP on. Can't. You've got Vista Remnants on the drive. Format... The wrong drive! ARRRGGGHHH!!! Re-format the right drive, install XP, Install Vista. Fingers crossed...All okay... Leave for business trip with a side trip to pharmacy for sedatives and a "Vista for Dummies" book.)

Got home from trip. Dropped the suitcase, waved at family and ran to basement studio to continue project.

This is where it gets fun. First step is to install SONAR 6PE. Drop the disc in, run install, run the patches. good to go -- Or so I think. Vista won't let me register. Sonar 6 is not Vista ready. Great. Not only have I already shelled out stupid money for an operating system that I swore I would never buy, now I'm going to have to belly up to the cash bar again for the latest iteration of SONAR. Okay, it has some nice new midi features. Maybe this will be good.

I've been running the MOTU gear for about 4 years now. The only problem has been the PC losing the PCI424 drivers if I shut the system completely down for more than a few hours. Never understood why, and MOTU never had a good reason either. This means that when the drivers were lost, I would have to power down, pull the card from the mainframe, power up, re-install the drivers, power down, re-install the PCI424, power up, and everything is fine. Got it down to about 15 minutes total time. No big deal. Downloaded the Vista drivers, ran through the usual install routine, and everything looks good.

Until I try to use the MOTU.

The drivers show up. The hardware is in the device manager. However, I cannot call up the MOTU in the audio selection panel.

It's there. I know it's there. I can see it. Vista tells me it can see it. But it doesn't let me use it. It's mine-- I paid good money for it! LET ME USE THE @$)* 2408!!!!!! :scared:

Is there anyone here who has experienced the same level of hair pulling, head bashing, suicide inducing frustration that I have? Did your court-appointed therapist offer any suggestions before shipping you away to the Funny Farm? If so, could you scribble them down in purple crayon and ask the day nurse to forward them to me?

Thanks in advance,
Dave

tech1
01-29-2008, 06:15 AM
Forgot my crayons today, but three things that may help:
http://www.cakewalk.com/support/kb/kb20070129.asp
http://www.motu.com/download/ (you'll have to log in and then go to "Windows," where you can access Vista-compatible drivers)
http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ts/detail.php?Index=31969&keyword=driver%20install%20error

Keep us updated on your saga.

Gutch
01-29-2008, 03:21 PM
Hi Tech1,

Thanks for the reply. I had installed the update on Sonar previously, (Now at 6.2.1), and had gotten the drivers for the MOTU from their site (had them before but lost them during drive format frenzy...). Will take a look at the optimization suggestions. I'm also going to try uninstalling and reinstalling the gear again to see if that clears up the problem.

Thanks again for the help!
Dave

Gutch
01-30-2008, 11:37 AM
Update from the Frustration Front...:

Cleared the system of any and all MOTU drivers, powered down and pulled the PCI424 card. rebooted. Just for giggles, I checked my user permissions. I am the sole user of this machine, an have right clicked the setup and selected "Run as Administrator". To be sure, I also wanted to double-check that I had Administrators rights. I did, but to be on the safe side, I enabled the "Administrator" profile anyway, and rebooted again.

This time, I used the "Administrator" profile for the process. I installed the driver set that MOTU said is Vista compliant (for the umpteenth time). Everything went smoothly, as usual. I jumped over to my regular profile to make sure the control panels were available there (They were), and then powered down to install the PCI424.

After card installation, I powered up and logged under my regular profile. As before, Vista came up and said it was installing the newly found hardware. I watched as the three sets of drivers were installed with my fingers crossed. Now the moment of truth -- I right clicked the little speaker icon and selected "Playback Devices"

VOILA!!!! There they are!!! Alleluia!!!!

Quick -- Bring up SONAR. Yeah! It works! There's some noise in the output, but I can tweak the system to clean that up. Woo-Hoo!!!!!!

Moral of the story -- Vista is like real life. You may think you are the boss, and it may say in your job description that you are the boss. You're not. There is only one boss, and it says so on his office door... :o

In other words, use the "Administrator" profile when installing drivers and other important software.

adian919
02-13-2008, 11:04 AM
I have limited to no technical knowledge, so bare with me.

I too haven't been able to register Sonar 6. I have a Vista OP, with me as the only profile and administrator on the computer. But, it says I am not logged in as an administrator when I go to register.

I contacted Sonar support, haven't heard back...is that surprising?

I have also experienced other problems. I had bad latency, so after adjusting buffer sizes etc...I finally bought M-audio Fast Track Pro Interface. It cured the latency. But I have note sticking issues (when recording through my axiom 61 keyboard controller). Other issues have arisen as well. But I honestly don't know if it is my lack of knowledgle on computers and midi recording that is the problem. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

And I think now I may have learned the interface I bought is not Vista compatible?

Anyway, I am having a hell of a time getting off the ground with this. I will look at some of the links provided, but I have looked at so many links, forums and support pages I could just lose it and give up all together. Any advice?